Personal Jesus
Summary: Takes place shortly after 1.14 – Fool Me Once. Trying to track down Katherine and following a tip from Anna, Damon road trips it solo to New Orleans, LA to look up the last person to see her that he knows of – a guy named Matthew Burroughs. He's looking for information but finds much, much more than that. Title comes from the song by Depeche Mode, which is pure aural hotness.
Tags: Slash, Damon/Male Character, Romance, Humour, Angst,
Warnings: Spoilers up to 1.14 (Fool Me Once), Damon slash, blasphemy all over the place – if you are offended by unorthodox uses of religious iconography, you will probably hate this – consider yourself warned. Rated R for language, sex, and a bit o' kink.
"God damn it". Damon was talking to himself, not an uncommon occurrence when he was behind the wheel of a car…one of the more frustrating activities a person could spend their time doing in his opinion. He was simultaneously trying to check his notes, taken down in his trademark serial killer scrawl, while also scanning road signs in the dark and ignoring the numerous calls that were coming in on his cell phone. He had left Mystic Falls twenty four hours ago, driving pretty constantly, though he did take a couple of breaks to grab a bite, so to speak. Needless to say, he had left a couple of women along the way with smiles, bite marks, and no memory of any of it.
Ever since he had finally managed to get into the tomb only to find that Katherine wasn't among the vampires trapped inside, he had been on a new mission. Anna had told him that Katherine was roaming the world, free and happy and most importantly, not giving a shit about him. The way Damon looked at it, there were two options: either she had managed to escape before the tomb was sealed and had some valid reason for not contacting him for 150 years, on which he planned to hear out. Or, she was simply a cold-hearted bitch who couldn't care less about him or Stefan (after all – she hadn't come to see him either) and had merely used them both for entertainment when they were together. If that was the case, Damon was prepared. He had stakes in the trunk and everything. If his entire history with Katherine ended up being reduced to one giant mindfuck, he would end her. Not just lock her up in a tomb this time either. He'd stake her through the heart himself and he'd enjoy it. But he really hoped that wasn't the case.
Through contacts of Anna, he had determined that the most recent place anyone could remember seeing Katherine was in New Orleans, Louisiana. Of course she would be drawn to one of the country's most well-known epicenters of hedonism; Katherine was never one to half-ass anything. According to Anna's contact, Katherine had been living in the city until about five years ago when she split town suddenly and nobody had seen her since. While there, she had spent a lot of time with a particular person; a grad student at Tulane University named Matthew Burroughs. He was human, as far as anybody could tell. Apparently, they had lived together for almost a year and were pretty inseparable according to sources. Damon's hands twisted on the steering wheel when he thought about Katherine with other men, flitting around the world screwing and partying and killing as she pleased. Sure, he had done his share of all of those things, but the difference was that in the back of his mind, no matter what he was doing, he was trying to get back to her. That was his sole goal in life (after death) – to reunite with the woman he loved more than anybody else. More and more he was starting to believe that Katherine viewed him as simply another notch on her bedpost; someone she could fuck with and then leave whenever she felt like it, or when things got out of control. He decided that for his own sanity he needed to put all of these thoughts out of his mind and find this Matthew Burroughs – hopefully he could get some information that would bring him closer to her. Plus, if dude turned out to be a dick frat guy who had been fucking Katherine, Damon would get his first kill since beginning his sojourn – he was kind of looking forward to that.
After a quick call to Information once he had arrived in the Big Easy, he learned that Matthew Burroughs still lived in the city, which was great because Damon was really over the driving thing. He wanted to get on with his mission – find this guy, get information (through torture if necessary, or if Damon got bored) and then find Katherine. Now he had an address and a phone number and the sun was starting to set. Excellent.
He got to the house, pulled over across the street and cut the engine. It was a nice house; small, pretty, and well cared for. So this guy was most likely married, or living with another woman. Not good. Damon didn't want others in the way once he and Matthew sat down for their discussion, and a wife would definitely be a buzzkill. Just as Damon was reformulating his plan of attack, the front door opened and a young man stepped outside, locking the door behind him. Even though it was pretty dark, Damon could see that he was attractive – fuck. Damon hated being jealous; it was a sign of weakness and he hated to show weakness of any kind. Brown curly hair, fit, relatively tall…Damon was so going to hate this motherfucker. He already did.
As Matthew moved down the walkway to the street, his features became clearer (yeah, definitely hot – Damon had to admit it) and suddenly his outfit was noticeable. Damon had thought he was wearing a black suit on his way out somewhere, but now he could see that it wasn't a suit. It was priest's clerics, complete with collar. Damon was intrigued – either this guy was a legit priest, which was a whole 'nother ball game, or he was a stripper. Matthew got in his car and Damon decided to follow – he had to know whether the guy was headed to a church or a bachelorette party, and since there was no sign of a boombox, Damon guessed it was a church. Damon smiled; he didn't want to get his hopes up, but he had a thing for clergy. There was a past…dalliance…with a minister in Colorado that still left him breathless when he thought about it. Damon had long ago abandoned any pretense of being straight or gay – a good fuck was a good fuck and damn it if he had to be around on this planet indefinitely he was not about to limit his potential hookup pool. Besides, in his experience, sometimes a man was just better – better at knowing exactly what to do and how to do it, plus you didn't have to be as careful with a guy. When Damon wanted it quick, dirty and rough, he usually sought out a dude.
Shaking the new images out of his head, he followed the car to a stone church at the edge of town, away from all of the noise. He watched Matthew enter through a side door, and decided to stay in the car and formulate a plan. He realized he needed more information about this guy, so he could figure out how to get him to let his guard down. Would seduction work? Would he have to play the lost sheep looking to rejoin God's flock? Maybe the guy really was a stripper and the party was in the church…okay, that one wasn't so likely. Damon was now really hoping he could go the seduction route because all of a sudden he was hungry for something other than blood.
He made his way into the church, looking around the dimly lit room for a sign of anyone. His eyes flicked over to a sign on a stand outside the ornate wooden confessionals, stating the times for confession. Well looky here…he was just in time. This sacrament could be very revealing, not just about the one spilling his secrets, but about the one listening as well. Damon could really get a lot from Matthew's reactions; one of the perks of being a vampire was the fantastic hearing. He could detect when someone's heart rate changed speed, or hear their breathing go shallow, so he knew he'd be able to get a sense of Matthew's train of thought pretty quickly once Damon started "confessing" all of the bad, bad things he'd done. From there, he'd play it by ear.